


Tales of an Unreliable Narrator

by nwhepcat



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Wes is damn hard on himself, but maybe he should be, has a pairing but not a ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 04:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: Wesley's career as a Watcher, a demon-hunter, and a failure, told in drabbles.





	Tales of an Unreliable Narrator

Tales of an Unreliable Narrator

Academy (prequel)

Wesley slides a diary from its place on the shelf. He knows these are forbidden, but he can't resist when an opportunity arises. 

One question consumes him, begets others: How can these diaries be anything but the work of unreliable narrators? Every watcher by nature ends up a failure, doomed to watch his slayer die (if not die beside her). How honest can one be, beset by agonies of grief and guilt, in assessing one's own role in disaster?

Who is least trustworthy? The watcher who minimize his errors, or one who castigates himself? 

Wesley hopes he is never called.

***

Purple Elephants 

BtVS s3 "Earshot"

Wesley mustn't think of Cordelia's legs.

Absolutely must not.

Must not compare her trim ankles to those of women he knew back home. Especially not Penelope. He had a certain fondness for Penelope, though ultimately it had to end when he was posted here. She was quite pleasant in ways, really, but her legs were a bit stocky. And decidedly pasty in hue.

Cordelia's, however, were long and tan and shapely. And long. Especially in her cheerleading costume.

Stop. 

I'm a bad man. His newly-telepathic slayer smiles at him brightly. A bad, bad man. Wesley dashes from the room.

***

Diary 

between s3 BtVS and s1 AtS

In typical Council fashion, they don't send Wesley the diary of his predecessor until Faith lies comatose. 

They don't think to demand its return when they sack him, and he doesn't volunteer it.

He reads and rereads, hoping for an answer, some hint of how it went wrong, what he should have done. So he tells himself. 

But he realizes, late one night as his thoughts are drifting, that something very different is happening. Like a stupid schoolboy, Wesley has fallen in love. 

Not with Faith, not at all.

He's fallen for the poor dead girl who was her watcher.

***

Perils 

between s3 BtVS and s1 AtS

There was a lightness about her; he sees it in the pages of her diary. In its title: The Perils of Pauline. She didn't take herself as tremendously seriously as the rest of his peers.

Surely that lightness made her the better watcher for Faith. He wonders what would have transpired if she'd lived. Wonders how Faith felt about her.

He'd asked Angel once, on his return from a prison visit. Does she ever mention Pauline?

He dares not ask Father about her. 

Wesley can hear his voice: Perhaps if she'd taken her duties more seriously, she'd still be alive.

***

Slip of the Tongue 

AtS s1, "I've Got You Under My Skin"

"Cordelia. Doyle--"

It's not the exaggerated patience of Angel's voice cutting through their bickering, or even Doyle's name. 

It's the silence that follows. Even Cordelia is stunned into speechlessness.

A sharp reminder, just as Wesley was coming to feel more sure of his place, that he's merely a substitute. 

He's come upon Cordelia dabbing her eyes, hastily pulling out her compact and repairing her makeup to hide the signs.

Sensed a heaviness in Angel, the grief that's left unspoken.

No one speaks of the other, the wish that they still had Doyle and not his replacement. 

No one has to.

***

Aftereffects

AtS s1, post-"Sanctuary"

"I get what you're feeling," Cordelia says. "I really do."

Wesley doubts that. What he's feeling is a cornucopia of aches. What he's feeling are the aftereffects of waking nightly in a blind panic, unable to breathe. Cordy does have a spectacular black eye, but it's not the same. 

"I know you feel betrayed--"

"I never said that."

"You wouldn't. But it's natural. You feel like he chose her over you. Hell, I kinda feel that way, and she didn't wave a blowtorch at me. That's Angel. He chose her because you don't need saving."

Wesley wishes that were true.

***

Mirrors 

AtS s3 "Billy"

In his darkened flat, Wesley gazes into the mirror Billy Blim held up to his soul.

But it's not just the violence that roared through him under Billy's influence. This whole sorry episode has made Wesley aware of old prejudices that shame him.

He'd believed himself a rational man. A decent man. Maybe believed that Gunn, with his lack of education, had less control over the violence within. 

Yet who'd handed Fred the means to protect herself, even at his own peril? 

Wesley's actions eat at him, but what's worse is the example of Gunn, a man he'd badly underestimated.

***

Perils II  
AtS s4 

Lilah arches beneath him, impeccably manicured nails clawing at his skin.

Wesley loves the kittenish noises she makes just before she's about to lose control. Loves that loss of control, the crumbling of her careful defenses. He's sure she finds the same appeal in him.

"Want you inside me. Now." Lilah underscores the words with her fingernails to make them seem more demand than plea.

Reaching into the nightstand drawer, Wesley fumbles for a condom. His scrabbling fingers encounter the embossed faux-alligator cover of Pauline's diary instead.

He rolls off Lilah, staring at the ceiling, refusing to answer her questions.

***

Dress-up

AtS s4

Lilah loves taunting him with what he can't have.

She flounces about his flat, a parody of Fred in glasses and plaits and her excruciating attempt at a Texas accent. Reminding him that he's too tainted for Fred now, that his darkness would only taint her as well. 

It arouses him, the veneer of innocence over a core of corruption. She's aware of it, aware of the effect of every wriggle and giggle.

This is all he deserves: parody, obscenity. 

She takes off the glasses, straddles him. 

"Put them on." Sometimes he loves taunting her with what she can't be.

***

Common Ground 

AtS s4 "Orpheus"

They've found at last the thing they have in common, Wesley and Faith.

He carries her into the Hyperion, limp, blood seeping through the bandage at her neck. The others drag Angelus to the place they've prepared.

Lorne glares accusingly, then sets about making her comfortable, crooning softly.

Even if they'd had a normal watcher-slayer relationship, Wesley would have failed at this. He'd have tended her wounds, of course. But giving comfort is beyond his talents.

They've found the thing they share. 

Faith would sacrifice herself without hesitation for Angel's sake. 

Just as readily as Wesley would sacrifice her.

***

Nine Shots

AtS S5, Post-"Lineage"

Wesley read _In the Gravest Extreme_ when he began carrying a gun and rereads it now. Everything there justifies his actions.

Never pull your gun unless you have grounds to fire it. Never pull the trigger unless a kill is warranted. Shoot to stop, and fire until the attacker is down. 

Wesley knows he was right. The thing wearing his father's face would have killed Fred without hesitation. 

But he wonders as he sits in his darkened office, whisky glass in hand. 

Nine shots. 

How many were about protecting Fred? How many were about destroying his father, erasing his influence? 


End file.
